Quote of the Day II

by Vince

Most analyses of the kind of recession we are having—the kind that follows a massive financial crisis and an asset-price bubble that led to too much leverage throughout the economy—indicate that things should be pretty bad right now. They’re correct. The IMF, for instance, warned as far back as 2009 that the “combination of financial crisis and a globally synchronized downturn is likely to result in an unusually severe and long-lasting recession.” Economists Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff, who have studied 800 years of recessions and panics, concur. “I would say we’re right on track,” Reinhart says. “Yes, the recovery looks long, but that’s because we haven’t had a financial crisis this severe since World War II.” —Annie Lowrey on the recession being as bad as the experts predicted.